Have a look at this piece of art :

It is called Isis Threaten Sylvania and created by someone called Mimsy, on display in an exhibition called Passion for Freedom at the Mall Galleries last week. From The Guardian :

It was removed from the Passion for Freedom exhibition at the Mall galleries after police raised concerns about the “potentially inflammatory content” of the work, informing the organisers that, if they went ahead with their plans to display it, they would have to pay £36,000 for security for the six-day show.

Take a close look. As Mick Hartley says :

Imagine, in the late 1930s, if a gallery was banned from showing images of Nazis doing horrid things because it was deemed to be potentially inflammatory.

Note that no horrid things are even being displayed.

I really like the Mall Galleries, one of my favourite in London, and I would have visited this show on Saturday if other things hadn't intervened. So, it is very disappointing to see this happen. What makes this worse in my view is that the police can make this sort of declaration, in essence making something impossible to print, show or see (it's called censorship).

It is also ironic that the exhibition was dealing with the concept of freedom, something that seems to be diminishing somewhat in this country. Diminished often in the interest of preventing offence, hurting people's feelings or bringing up anything uncomfortable to various groups. What type of people are we becoming? Perhaps the sort of people who will eventually lose our freedom.

Introducing St Finan, an early celtic saint thought to have come over from Ireland in the 7th Century. No, he's not much to look at!

This is a photograph of a Bishop's crozier tip, on display at the National Museum of Scotland, and perhaps from the 12th Century. Found near Loch Shiel, Moidart, on St Finan's Isle. It's not much to look at, being quite primitive, but this is some of its odd attraction.

Finan was the second bishop of Lindisfarne, after the famous Aidan, and trained on Iona on the West coast of (what was not yet) Scotland. This was the great time of the spread of Christianity to the east coast Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria, and the great debates over Easter between the Roman and Irish churches.

Julian Cope, ex-frontman of The Teardrop Explodes, the 1980's rock/indie band, has a piece in The Guardian. From the world of rock, and going slightly off the rails for a period, he went on to write a very unusual, but well regarded book, on pre-modern history, The Modern Antiquarian. He seems to have an abiding interest in archaeological and historical investigation, so a kindred soul perhaps.

In the newspaper, he has had a preview of the forthcoming show at the British Museum, The Celts: Art and Identity, Cope is at pains to mention how wide the curators might have drawn the Celtic identity line, but it's been stretched widely for a very long time now. It's really just a label for anything pre-Roman almost. However, it has still strong connotations when identity comes to the fore, especially of the national variety.

I'm looking forward to the show.

Back in town ... and the sun was shining!